“i’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. i make mistakes, i am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best”

-marilyn monroe

on a scale of one to ten, i am kind of depressed today.

despite having done many of the things i love.

despite the fact that it was nearly 60 degrees outside, and i passed several hours with the sunshine on my back.

and so life has gone on, generally moving in the forward direction, minus an occasional lost day or two in bed.

this is the first time in my adult life i have been attached to no one, nothing that is keeping me in one place or life situation — a fact that is on alternate days liberating and crushing.

i went to visit portland and it was nice. i felt slightly covered in fuzz for the entire weekend, in that way that is only possible when you are the company of good people for long stretches at a time.

in between booking my ticket and my arrival, adams was offered an amazing job in st. petersburg. he’ll return to russia the day after my birthday. i am obviously very proud of him, but a little disappointed too, that i am now left to my own devices as a the sole freewheeling 20-something in the family.

and zach, it was good to see his face. i still have a significant crush on him, i guess. and i wonder if i will ever be able to expose my weirdness to anyone else in the same way, and whether being able to do so is even a good thing. i mean, we broke up, so maybe it’s not. but i was a kid then, so it’s hard to say.

i was more judgmental of portland this time around. it just seems to easy, white, to the point that it’s a little boring and repetitive. we did do some fun stuff, though, like go to the weirdo kidd toy museum and explore the attic of your nightmares at a place called city liquidators.

i slept on a normal schedule during the trip, which was surprising. it was much harder to adjust when i came back. the worst part about my schedule is not having to stay up all night — it’s switching back and forth when i have days off, and sometimes getting off at a reasonably late hour of night, other times when it’s morning.

i had last night off but stayed up anyway. i went to a party at cody’s house, kissed a boy who lived in my tiny dorm building when i was a freshman in college, acted generally like a stupid drunk person. i brought scott to the party, though it was the first time we had seen each other in almost a month (yeah, when will i ever learn that part two never works out?). it was nice to patch things up, but he wasn’t pleased with my behavior. still, i think we can be friends, eventually, probably, in some sort of messy way.

i’ve been talking to toby a lot, and i think he is a good friend for me, with possible mentor potential. i kind of wish i had spent more time talking to him last night instead of locking lips with bad santa, but oh well. oh well oh well.

i think about men lately, and dating. i seem to swing back and forth between wanting everything and nothing. i spend a lot more time on okcupid and i go on dumb dates with people from the internet and the real world, then i feel progressively more and more like the pickiest girl on earth. i sense that i would be a lot happier if there was a person supporting me, loving me, pushing me to finally crawl out of this phase in life. but i also don’t think i can be with someone successfully until i get out it.

i sense that i have a strong craving for intimacy, familiarity, though i don’t even know if i want it to come from a romantic relationship. i think a lot about getting roommates. i think a lot about living in nashville, maybe even with my parents for a while.

chachington’s friend charles is going on a date with my dad on monday morning so he can go on a date with me when i go home in january. that should be interesting.

i don’t know what else to say. well, there was thanksgiving, and it was a little hard. being away from my family and thinking about that time last year, when david and i decided to get married on our trip back from california. we also had our first major fight.

i haven’t talked to david, or even seen him from afar, in over a month. i don’t know how i feel about that. sometimes i don’t care, and sometimes i count the days and i’m sad.

i took the MAT. i did well. i’m almost done with grad school stuff and i applied for denver teaching fellows, which would maybe be even better.

i want to go everywhere lately, or stay here. i don’t know. adams gave me a free plane ticket and i guess i’ll go to new york in february. i miss the days when i could just hop on the bus.

justin s. gets home in about a week. now i am going to call justin k. and get my weekly dose of reality check.

best weekend/days off in a long effing time.

yay.

it’s time for a swift kick in the ass, and i’m the one who has to do the kicking.  JUST KNOW THAT NEXT YEAR CAN BE 100 TIMES BETTER IF I COMMIT TO MAKING IT THAT WAY.

i am going to find
love
happiness
a different job
peace with myself
a path to my future

just gotta look around.

my first goal is to start asking for exactly what i want.

i have a feeling about 2010.

youth and beauty don’t guarantee happiness, no.

i’m going to portland to see little bro from dec. 10-13.

-katie holmes (three times in the past 48 hours, once by a dude claiming that people think he looks like tom cruise)
-liv tyler (the usual)
-michelle monaghan (have been getting this one all the time lately… who the fuck is she?)
-lauren graham (argh.)
-bjork (seems to only happen when i do insane things with my hair) 

also gay men keep thinking my eye color is fake, which is fucked up and hilarious because in college i wore ridiculous aquamarine contacts despite the fact that my eyes are some shade of green or sometimes blue.

i think i’m just not going to sleep today.  it isn’t working.

tonight at 10 p.m. i begin another 8-day (night?) stretch of work.  then, just as i’m about to go crazy, i will have next saturday and sunday off.  i’m also taking the MAT at 1 p.m. on friday at DU, and i’m weirdly excited about it.  i didn’t show up for the GRE.  even if i am capable of scoring decently on it, i had anxiety because (of course) i couldn’t sleep… and that part about not studying.

instead i began the day by catching up scott, lying supine on his couch, where i spent so much time just weeks ago.  i guess we’re going to try for a round II.  being messed up about david interrupted the nice thing we had going in october, but there were other problems, too.  i’m not ready to be super serious with someone (hence my earlier comment about needing to be in a totally different life situation), but i think i am capable of growing close to another person in this time of transition.  i hope so.

i went home, took a shower, and did productive things in the whole foods coffee bar, like drink green juice and take care of grad school things.  i got in touch with some people from whom i would like recommendations.  i thought about the things that make me happy and decided being productive is one of them.

sunshine is another.  it’s nice to be awake all day.

coffee and chatting and friends is another.  i went to the new hooked on colfax to meet jason, and that was nice, though i prefer the old location next door.  i generally spend a lot of time alone during the day and need to make myself get out there, laugh with people more often.  i’m happy about the circumstances that allowed us to get in touch — technology and my somewhat stalker-ish tendencies.

after that i did one of the weirdest things i’ve done in a while.  i drove down west colfax to the lake steam baths.  i’ve wanted to go inside since last winter, after i spotted it and did some online research to determine it wasn’t a hand job whirlpool spa.  despite the creepy sign, it’s probably the closest thing denver has to a schvitz.  monday and thursday are ladies days, and it’s open till 10 pm, with unlimited use for $15.  (five bucks off if you mention yelp!)

other than a few yelp reviews, i didn’t really know what to expect.  you walk into this little wood paneled front desk area and are given a draping sheet, a tiny hand towel, and a locker key.  past that room there is a hallway that leads to a large locker room and a “cafe” that sells (amont other things) hot dogs, salad, greek yogurt, seltzer and extremely cheap beer.  i wanted some seltzer after my first round of sweating, but unfortunately their machine was broken yesterday.

anyway, i had been instructed to find lena to check in for my massage.  i did that and she kind of showed me around.  i was told that the draping sheet was just for the locker room.  you walk in to the steam area nude, and inside there is a naked old woman who tells you what to do.  she will also scrub you with salt, if you wish.  the first step is to take a shower.  then you sit in the eucalyptus-scented steam room until you feel like you’re going to die.  then you go into the dry sauna and splash cold water from buckets onto your body.  when you’re really sure you’re going to die, you go back to the big room with the naked salt scrub lady and lie on a tiled platform/bench until your heart rate goes down.  then you sit in the hot tub in the corner, and finally (well, this was my own decision), you go back to the shower area and stand under cold water for as long as you can stand it.

i completed that process twice, sat in the locker room and read an oprah magazine from summer 2008, and then got a pretty good hour-long massage for $30.  the only quality control issue was that my massage therapist wanted to talk about her life the entire time.  but i was in the mood to chat, so i didn’t mind.  she’s 28 and divorced with three kids, which made me feel a little more at peace with the things i was complaining about the other day.

after that i drove home feeling very relaxed, and though i had planned to do yoga, i decided a run in the cold would be nice.  it was.

the day ended with l’arrivée du beaujolais nouveau at le central, and a belated celebration of scott’s birthday.  i drank a little too much but it helped me go to bed at a normal time.  i fell asleep with good thoughts in my head and felt somehow renewed.

i thought i would have another productive day today, but instead i wasted basically all of it sleeping more and lounging around with gonzo — an activity i’ve determined is not good for my overall well-being, even if it feels nice at the time.  i’m going to read for a little bit now to prepare my brain for the drunken clusterfuck i will inevitably encounter in a couple hours.

oh, i had the weirdest dream about a party, d.c., portland, gardens, those draping sheets, cats (namely gonzo and an anonymous kitten), and pete’s kitchen as a high school sorority meeting at my parents’ house.  i’ll have to write about that later.

from dad: